


Four Days of Christmas

by ariedana



Category: Take That
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariedana/pseuds/ariedana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A singleton’s Christmas on their own isn’t as sad as it seems to everyone else, and might even be a choice. However, sometimes the people who care manage to bring a little bit of Yuletide cheer whether you want it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was the Saturday before Christmas Day, but in Jason’s mind the holiday season really hadn’t even registered yet.

His house looked exactly the same as normal - lovely, tasteful, immaculate and bare. No tree, no wrapped gifts, no decoration of any sort. When it’s just him to enjoy it, why bother? It’s a lot of hassle and annoyance to get a tree for one person, and needless expense to pay for someone to deliver it.

Since going to the shops to buy presents for people just invited a million more photographs to be taken, and a million tweets detailing his whereabouts to be posted, he gave in to modern societal deterioration at its finest and bought all his gifts online to be posted to the people he’d bought them for. He at least patted himself on the back for not feeding the mass market by merely ordering from Amazon.co.uk. Locally-owned co-ops are online now too, after all.

His activities were the same as ever also. No bustling about making plans, no frantic phone calls to coordinate activities, and definitely no packing in preparation for road trips. After so many years of being the single brother shuttling from home to home based on everyone else’s whims, timetables, and random family dramas, he had made the decision to skip the whole drill altogether.

His parents were taking holidays and he managed to successfully beg off of every invitation to any form of a holiday meal. Less stress, less waste of fossil fuels driving around the country, and much less explanation of why he didn’t feel the need to eat various types of foods that he never understood the point of. 

In the New Year he might have his own sort of a quiet personal celebration by making his semi-regular jaunt to Asia. But for now Jason didn’t feel the need to celebrate anything that he viewed as distressingly commercialized. It wasn’t that he felt the need to be anti-holiday joy or anything. He was just very neutral on the matter. Maybe this is what inner peace was supposed to feel like. In any case, he was going to go with it.

————-

On the Sunday before Christmas a text appeared on Jason’s phone shortly before 4, from Gary’s phone number.

_Unexpectedly in LDN for ITV meeting. Want to catch up. Fancy a drink?_

Jason sighed, hoping this wasn’t the beginning of a million clumsily fabricated excuses to get him out of the house and into the Christmas spirit by various friends. However, he didn’t see Gary as the type to have time for the fake nonsense that others might have. Moreover, it was odd for him to be in the city so close to Christmas. Wasn’t he and the family meant to be in Oxford?

A couple of hours later, Gary and Jason were ensconced in a wine bar near Waterloo Gardens, close enough to the ITV studios where celebrity patrons were not uncommon enough to be noticed. One thing that the two of them shared was a penchant for red wine, so they contentedly split a bottle of a fine Beaujolais nouveau.

“Take advice from me mate, NEVER do a holiday special on your own,” Gary groaned. “I didn’t know what a pain it would be getting the whole thing together.”

“Don’t worry, I can’t see myself ever doing something like that,” Jason snorted into his wineglass.

“You should, y’know,” Gary noted. “Not necessarily a whole one of your own, but just being a part of something like that, not as part of the band. Markie had a blast, and Rob popped in for the London show the week before and had a great time. It would be fun to see you at one of my January dates.”

“Why, so people could wonder why I’m there?” Jason asked. “Markie and Rob both sing lead on songs you’ve featured in your show. I don’t think I’ve heard about you doing Wooden Boat on tour.”

“If you’d come I’d fit it in,” Gary tried to pass it all off jokingly, but had a note of seriousness about it. “I miss seeing you prance onstage and pulling the focus.”

Jason grinned, also trying his best to be nonchalant.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” he said. “You’re the star, mate. Want everyone to remember that.”

Gary smiled and patted Jason’s hand on the table.

“There’s more than one star in the sky and there can be more than one person in the spotlight,” he said. “Invitation’s open. You don’t even have to tell me you’re coming. A ticket will be in your name at Will Call every night. Just try not to spin on your head during the ballads.”

Jason looked more touched than he cared to admit that even with half of England falling at the feet of Gary Barlow OBE, he still needed his friends around him. Including Jason.

So although he soon steered the topic to plans for the upcoming album, he felt confident enough to speak out more than usual about his own thoughts on what they should consider direction-wise.

Because he was uncommonly un-nervous, he even let Gary drink more of his share of the wine than usual. And when Gary pulled an unexpected wrapped box out of his backseat to give to Jason, saying that Dawn sent her love also, he didn’t roll his eyes at all.

——————————

Jason never slept late, especially when he hadn’t drank much the night before, so he was awake for the next text message to appear on his phone. This one showed up under “Mark”.

_Jay, have a bit of an emergency and the nanny’s out of town. Could you watch the kids for a few?_

Jason sighed. Trust Mark to remember that Uncle Jason had been a handy resource during the tour when Emma and the kids had visited and Mum and Daddy wanted a night out. But back in those days they only had two kids, old enough that they weren’t too unlike some of his nieces and nephews. Now they had a baby. And Jason was not able to work his boyish charm quite as effectively on babies.

Luckily when Jason arrived little Fox was fast asleep in her cot, the other two were playing quietly in their rooms, and it didn’t seem like it would be much of a chore to keep an eye on them whilst Mark ran Emma to the hospital to treat a nasty migraine. He might even be able to get a couple of chapters read on his latest book.

However, that peace lasted approximately seven minutes after Mark and Emma left. Suddenly he heard a shrill wail coming from Fox’s cot.

“Hold on, little one,” he called, racing up the steps and suddenly catching a foot on one of them, only narrowly averting a tumble back downstairs by landing hard on his arthritic knee. He tried not to yell too loudly, but it’s hard not to.

Elwood suddenly appeared, looking concerned.

“Uncle Jay, are you alright?” he inquired. “Do you have a booboo?”

“Yes, Uncle Jay has a booboo,” Jason said, slightly breathlessly as he successfully held back a dozen curses and tried to convince himself that no, he wasn’t seeing stars. “It’s fine. Let’s go check on Fox, okay?”

Jason managed to pull himself up the rest of the steps and into Mark and Emma’s room, where Fox’s cot was set up. She was lying on her back, red faced as she screamed her discontent with the world at large.

“It’s okay angel, I’m here,” Jason said. “Are you wet?”

She stopped crying for a second as she stared at the strange bearded man peering over the cot’s rails at her. Once she determined that he was not her mum and wasn’t bearing any evidence of potential lunch, she started screaming even harder.

Jason felt very helpless, which was not a situation he was used to with children or females of any age. He clumsily determined that she was not wet or muddy, was sufficiently warm and didn’t appear to have any life-endangering conditions that the crying could be signalling. So he decided that it might be a good idea to feed her. He gingerly picked up the baby, cradled her on his shoulder and limped down the steps and into the kitchen, with both Elwood and a recently-arrived Willow trailing behind.

After a few minutes spent locating a bottle in the refrigerator, determining if it was warm enough to feed as it was, then figuring out how to microwave it without exploding anything, he finally started feeding the baby. Fox, finally convinced that this strange man might actually be useful, sucked on the bottle as she looked up at Jason with wide eyes that he noticed would soon be the same green as Mark’s.

“Looks like you’re going to look like your daddy, huh?” Jason said soothingly.

“I think she looks like me!” Willow announced. 

“Of course she does, sweetpea,” Jason assured her. “She’s almost as pretty as you are.”

Even if Willow was still a tiny girl, she wasn’t immune to Jason’s flattery. She turned as red as her hair and run out of the room giggling.

Elwood looked at his little sister with a mixture of brotherly love and brotherly annoyance.

“I wanted a brother!” he announced.

“You did, huh?” Jason smiled at the boy.

“Yes!” Elwood insisted. “A boy could play cars with me and do boy things with me. Sisters are useless.”

“I wouldn’t say that Elwood,” Jason said. “Did you know that I have five brothers?”

“FIVE?” Elwood said incredulously.

“Yes, five,” Jason said. “Including one the same age as me. We were born together.”

“You must have had so much fun!” Elwood said enviously. “You always had someone to play with, and not just wanting to play nasty old doll games.”

“That’s true,” Jason conceded. “But I also had brothers fighting with me over everything. If I wanted to play with a car, one of my brothers wanted the same one. If I wanted to do something alone, they would never let me. And if I got a present, it wasn’t just mine. I had to share it with all of my brothers.”

“That sounds awful,” Elwood said, looking distressed at the thought of having to share his toys with Willow. “No one but me wants to play with my cars.”

“And that can be a good thing,” Jason smiled as he picked Fox up and laid her on his shoulder to burp. He ignored it a few moments later when he felt the baby spit up a considerable amount of milk on his favourite jumper. At least she was quiet.

“Do you want to come see our Christmas tree?” Elwood asked. “Willow and I decorated it all ourselves!”

Jason agreed and soon was sitting with the baby in front of a huge spruce tree with a lot of blinking lights and what seemed to be the entire contents of a construction paper factory hanging in various shapes on it. It reminded him a lot of his own family tree, back in his childhood in Wythenshawe.

Elwood and Willow soon began entertaining Jason and Fox by singing all of the songs they had performed the week before at their school’s holiday show, with Willow putting on the strawberry costume she had worn (because, indeed, the birth of Baby Jesus wouldn’t have been the same without various dancing fruit.)

Jason noted that so far neither child displayed any sort of precocious singing talent that might prompt Mark to encourage them to follow in his own shoes, but they were still young and there was a lot to be said for having a real childhood unencumbered by dreams of stardom. After all, they had a lot of fans in their own home and amongst Daddy’s friends.

“Uncle Jay?” Willow piped up next to Jason’s knee after she’d tired out from her performance.

“Yes, Willow?”

“Does Father Christmas exist?”

Jason had been contemplating rustling up a cuppa tea but hadn’t gotten it yet. Nevertheless, he choked.

“Why do you ask that?” he asked. “Isn’t that something to ask your mummy or daddy?”

“I keep seeing him all over the place,” Willow said. “Mummy took us to see him on Oxford Street, but then I saw him standing on Piccadilly Circus, and then on the Tube. And then he came to school. And he always looked different. He wasn’t the same person.”

Elwood nodded vigorously.

“Last year on Christmas night I went to bed to let Father Christmas come, but I never heard his bells or his sleigh,” he said. “I snuck down to look and all I could see was Mummy and Daddy. And I think Daddy was eating the cookies we’d left!”

“But if we tell them that we don’t believe in Father Christmas anymore, they won’t buy us presents anymore,” Willow said sadly. “That’s the only reason you get presents, because Father Christmas brings them.”

For once in his life, Jason was truly at a loss for words. It figured that the kids would decide to ask him these things, he thought. He was the guy who was always questioning the world and not coming up with answers to his satisfaction, so how could children expect him to do that for them? Not to mention this was one of those life-defining questions for a parent to answer, not a quasi-uncle who would probably get it all wrong and scar them for life. Suddenly visions of Mark and Emma chasing after him with large objects to pummel him with danced through his head.

But on the other hand, he was kind of touched that the kids would expect him to give them a straight answer on this. So he swallowed and finally found some words.

“Father Christmas isn’t just about presents and bringing you things,” he said. “He’s about joy and giving things to other people and the Christmas spirit. And that can be anything you want. What do YOU think Father Christmas is?”

To his relief, it turned out that was the right answer, and one that the two children had many, many thoughts on. They continued to tell him all about Father Christmas as he put Fox back into her cot, then as he made them sandwiches for their lunch, and then as he tucked both of them into their beds for afternoon naps.

Later that afternoon, after Elwood reappeared and found his parents had returned home and Jason preparing to leave, he had a special request.

“Mummy, Uncle Jay told us all about Father Christmas and how he’s not about bringing presents, but us giving to others. Can I give him my little tree?”

Emma was a little surprised that her son was wanting to give Jason the small artificial tree that was in his room, decorated with tiny wooden cars and trains and wooden blocks. But she readily agreed, touched that he wanted to share. And how could Jason turn down a small boy’s wish?

So despite his best efforts not to decorate, Jason sat in his living room that night and watched the tiny lights on the tree blinking on and off. It was oddly soothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Rob had never been the type to announce he was going to visit beforehand, so when the doorbell rang late Christmas afternoon Jason knew immediately who it was.

And frankly, he was ready to welcome the company. Not that his quiet Christmas hadn’t been a success. He found that the tiny tree that Elwood had given him was a wonderful focal point during his morning yoga session and meditation, and he had made a nice lunch full of the healthy things that he never managed to convince anyone else to make for Christmas dinner. He had happily spent most of the day finishing the book he’d been reading the day before when he took care of Mark’s kids.

But now that he’d finished watching the Queen’s speech, he had to admit that there are some days of the year where you’re just used to the sound of a dozen voices at once, to people getting excited and shouting and to smiles all around. And if there was anyone on earth who could provide all of that in the form of one person, it was Rob.

However, when he opened the door Rob was not alone.

“Merry Christmas, Jay!” Rob shouted in a very Santa-like manner. “I come bearing gifts!”

In his hand he held a red leash. He reached around and picked up a smallish squirming ball of fur, picked it up and stepped into the house. He dropped the dog inside, where it promptly looked up at Jason with wide chocolate eyes, started shaking and began peeing.

“Rob!” Jason barely kept himself from shrieking as he saw the yellow puddle spreading across the floor. He scooped up the dog and took him back outside.

“Sorry, he seems a bit nervous,” Rob chuckled. “He is fully house-trained, I promise.”

“Why in the hell have you brought me a dog?” Jay asked. “I spent half of my time at your house in LA trying to avoid yours.”

“Eight dogs are overwhelming, I know,” Rob said. “That’s why I only brought you one! Meet Kismet!”

Jay shook his head as he made sure that the small, brindle-coloured dog with floppy ears had completely emptied his bladder on the shrubbery. He then picked him up and headed into the living room, with Rob trailing along behind.

“So I had wanted to get Teddy her very own dog…” Rob began

“At three months old?” Jason asked. “She’s a little young to feed and walk it.”

“You know what I mean,” Rob shrugged. “Ayda wasn’t keen on the idea, but I took her to the local shelter to see if I could change her mind. I didn’t but I ran into this little fella, and he just looked at me and begged me to take him home. But I think he’s suited for you, mate.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Jason, setting Kismet onto the floor.

The dog walked a few feet and laid down. But instead of merely plopping onto his stomach like a normal pup, he folded his back legs forward and laid his belly forward on them and stretched his front legs ahead, much as if he was doing a yoga pose.

“See?” Rob said. “That’s one thing about him. I think he’s a reincarnated yogi.”

Jason rolled his eyes, but couldn’t honestly dispute the idea.

“As you’ll see in awhile, he dances too,” Rob continued. “He skitters around madly and twirls and prances. It’s like he’s half show pony.”

“What breed is he, exactly?”

“Puggle,” Rob said. “Half pug, half beagle. But you never know exactly with a rescue.”

Jason nodded. As dubious as he was at the idea of having a dog, he was glad that it was a mutt, at least. Less ethical concerns there, plus he liked the idea of providing a home to something that needed it. Even if it did seem awfully dependent on him in a way that unnerved him.

And Kismet was also a bit problematic to his OCD tendencies, as he soon discovered. As he and Rob sat and chatted about the whole thing, the dog started exploring and displayed a penchant for chewing things. Chewing expensive things, like Jason’s laptop power supply.

“NO!” Jason shouted, swatting his nose with a rolled-up paper. Kismet jumped up, tumbled around and performed the doggy version of a shoulder roll.

“See?” Rob laughed. “It’s ironic that Kismet’s name means ‘fate.’”

Jason shook his head as he wondered how you explain to a dog how chewing certain things could electrocute them. But he was soon distracted after Kismet discovered a pair of nice leather thong sandals serviced as a great chew toy.

“Rob, I really don’t know,” Jason said, looking sadly at the remains of his favourite sandals that had made it through three tours but not even an hour after the arrival of this dog. “It’s a full-time job taking care of myself. I think taking care of a dog that makes messes and wrecks my stuff might drive me mad.”

“But see, that’s the point,” Rob said. “Maybe focusing on something else might help you worry a little less about yourself. And there’s nothing that makes you feel better about yourself than making a dog happy. Do you think I would ever have felt like I was capable of taking care of a baby without my pups?”

“Oh, so this is part of a plan to get me to start having kids?” Jason said with a sly smile.

“Nah, one thing at a time,” Rob said. “Now let’s go set up his food bowls. And no, you don’t have to feed him organic food. Dog’s just like plain ol’ chow.”

“But doesn’t regular dog food have a lot of gluten in it?” Jason argued. “Dog’s can’t digest it properly and have a lot of allergies. I’ll have to do some research. Maybe some of that food that only has fish products…”

It was Rob’s turn to roll his eyes, but with a self-satisfied grin attached. Because as planned later that evening he left Jason alone with his new dog for the first time.

After a night full of hurried efforts to make sure all shoes were out of Kismet’s reach, more attempts to teach him that chewing electronic objects was not in his best interests, a couple of hurried walks around the neighbourhood and two hours of tug o’ war with the one chew toy Rob had left him, Jason found himself with a new bedtime companion. As much as he tried to convince the pup - and himself - that sharing the bed with him was a horrible idea, he didn’t last two minutes of hearing Kismet whining outside his bedroom door.

So the two of them ended up curled up crescent-shaped together, and the last thought going through his mind as he drifted off was that this was the easiest he’d found it to go to sleep since sharing a bed with Howard at a Glasgow B&B during a ’90s tour.

—————-

Hearing from Jason randomly was not an uncommon occurrence to Howard, as they chatted over the phone at least a couple of times a week. But he didn’t really expect to hear from him on Boxing Day. He certainly didn’t expect him to show up Rob-like at his doorstep without a call or text. And with a puppy.

“Fancy seeing you, Jay,” he said with a grin, letting Jason and Kismet in. “But I think your latest girlfriend’s a bit of a dog.”

Jason rolled his eyes.

“It’s a boy,” he said.

“Even better!” Howard chortled. “Never thought I’d see you with a pup, though. What’s up with this?”

“His name is Kismet,” Jason explained, handing the leash to Howard. “Rob sprung him on me last night. Do you mind if he hangs out in your garden? I didn’t want to leave him alone on his first day.”

“No problem at all!” Howard said. “Unfortunately Oscar’s not here to make friends with him. Katie took him with her to visit her parents. But the girls will love him!”

Howard called Grace and Lola, and soon they were gathered around Kismet cooing and scratching his ears. The dog, displaying more Jay-like qualities by the second, was a natural charmer, grinning and wagging his tail.

“Aren’t you the pretty doggy?” Lola giggled.

“Such a good boy!” Grace said. “Can you shake hands? Shake my hand!”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Jason asked dryly, unused to being on the back-burner with any females, particularly Howard’s girls.

“Oh hi Uncle Jay,” Grace said as she continued to try to show Kismet how to shake hands.

“Is that any way to treat your future husband?” Jason asked. “And here I am to ask your father for your hand in marriage. You’re a teenager now, after all.”

That finally impinged on the girl, as she blushed up to her hair.

“Don’t you even joke about that!” Howard laughed. “Gracie’s off the market until she’s at least 30. And that would just be too weird anyway. I know far too much about you to be your father-in-law.”

Jason just grinned.

Howard told the girls to take Kismet out into the garden with some of Oscar’s toys to teach him new tricks, and soon he and Jason were in the living room with steaming cuppas and the Royle Family Christmas Special on the telly.

“Now I know why you’re here,” Howard smirked. “You wanted to see the Royle Family on a proper screen that’s not in black and white.”

“That’s not fair,” Jason argued. “My telly isn’t black and white.”

“Does it have a remote control?” Howard asked.

Jason snorted. He and Howard then debated the merits of all the various women on the show, past and present, with Jason confessing a confusing crush on Cheryl Carroll.

“She doesn’t seem like your type, Jay” Howard said, squinting at Jessica Hynes.

“You should know by now that my tastes are varied,” Jason said. “And she’s brilliant in Spaced too.”

The afternoon rolled along apace for the two of them. Howard ordered out curries for them and the girls and got into a spirited discussion with Jason about the advisability of allowing a dog to eat leftovers, much less leftover Indian food. The girls talked Jason into watching a recording of the Doctor Who Christmas episode, and he ended up cuddling both of them after a particularly scary chase scene.

Howard and his daughters were thouroughly entertained by both Kismet, who was both a charming and slightly off-kilter animal, and his new owner, who could possibly be described in exactly the same way. After watching Kismet do his brand of doggy-dancing for awhile, Howard suggested that Jason should enter him in Britain’s Got Talent that year.

“For once you wouldn’t be the one dancing all over the place,” he chuckled. “Might be a nice change.”

“But what would I do if I wasn’t the dancer?” Jason grinned.

“Just send the dog onstage and you can get back to sitting on beaches and benches full-time,” Howard said, poking Jason in the ribs.

It wasn’t a traditional Christmas celebration at all for Jason. Nothing about the past four days had been. But as he sat there in Howard’s living room, surrounded by people he considered family, he realized that he had gotten exactly what he needed that year. He had enjoyed doing things his way, but his friends had also unwittingly dragged him into a sort of holiday spirit. He had even gotten a tree, despite himself!

And with the dog now wiggling its way onto Jason’s lap, he now had the gift of life and unconditional love. To go with all the friendship gifts he’d received recently.

Jason reached over and pulled Howard into a one-armed hug, the other arm cradling the now-dozing dog.

“What’s that for?” Howard asked, looking at his friend with fondness,

“It’s for being you,” Jason said. “Call me sappy, but I guess that’s what the holidays are for. To make you appreciate things you didn’t really know you had. Merry Christmas, How.”

Howard threw both of his arms around Jason and reciprocated, pressing a kiss onto his chin. His daughters, noting the affectionate display, joined in and started cuddling Jason too, along with an awakened Kismet. Jason didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it, but he couldn’t imagine anything that would make him happier than that moment.


End file.
